Do you know where this is?

It wouldn’t be far from the truth to say that at one time in its history, Worcester’s industries lit up the world. The building in this week’s Then and Now played its part.

It wouldn’t be far from the truth to say that at one time in its history, Worcester’s industries lit up the world. The building in this week’s Then and Now played its part. In 1883, an entrepreneurial Hopkinton dentist, Dr. Otis C. White, was granted a patent for a lighting fixture that featured an adjustable joint. With his invention, he became the father — simultaneously — of task lamps and of the universal ball and socket joint that is still in use today.

When Dr. White incorporated in Massachusetts in the late 1800s, he located his lighting factory in this building, inside which production of a line of innovative products continued through two world wars and beyond, until 1980. The keen-eyed will note the 1960s-vintage Volkswagen Beetle in this 1964 picture of the factory.